You sent a family photo
    smiling like you meant it
    and the day behaved for a second—

    like it remembered it’s allowed to be soft.

Later,
      a song.

Not the last one you sent—
    the goodbye-shaped one
    that made the room feel colder than it was—

    this one said:
    let’s have a holiday hug.

(Yes.  Better.  Thank you.)

So now I’m thinking about pilots,
                the literal ones
   in pressed uniforms and practiced calm,
   guiding aluminum and strangers
   through weather and dark

   like it’s just another Thursday.

Except yours actually is:
             STL to home,
           Christmas Day,
 because Coal is waiting
 and love looks a lot like returning

 even when the calendar is inconvenient.

Me?

Family time with Ava,
       love and laughter in Texas.

Then,
     California just after the new year—
                         another runway,
                           another gate,
                 another “boarding soon”
              that isn’t the one I want.

And then the one I *do* want—
         Atlanta, January 15,
  circled like a destination
  I barely pretend is casual.

If I knew a pilot
   with a soft spot for stowaways
   and a tolerance for my particular brand of hopeful,

   I’d hitchhike in the baggage
       and call it “efficient logistics.”

But I don’t.

So I do what the rest of us do—
   I wait,
   I plan,
   keep the thread from fraying
           with small check-ins,
                  better timing

             and fewer mistakes.

Still,
      travel has a way of teaching the same lesson:

      You can’t erase miles with willpower,
      you can’t fast-forward through airspace,

      you can’t muscle the sky.

You can only trust the route,
           watch the minutes,
           hold steady until

       the wheels touch down.

Which is where the other kind of pilot comes in—
                      not the one with epaulets,
                         but the one I keep lit
                                 behind my ribs.

That pilot light.

The little flame that doesn’t cancel delays,
                      doesn’t solve distance,
                      doesn’t make a spectacle,
                      doesn’t rewrite December—

                      it just stays on.

That pilot keeps me airborne
     when the week goes gray,
     when the map says “later,”
     when I’m doing life in a different time zone

     and pretending that’s fine.

A photo.

A song.

A “we’re still here” tucked into ordinary hours.

So: go fly home Thursday,
    rescue Coal’s Christmas,

    put your key in the door like a promise.

And I’ll keep my flights where they are,
            my January where it belongs,
           my mind on the long approach—

           steady hands,
           quiet heart,
           and that small,
           stubborn pilot light
           doing what it’s done…

           24/7/365—

           keeping me pointed toward you.